


Andante

by louciferish



Series: Earth Angel [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Fallen Angels, Fandom for Australia, FandomforOz, Light Angst, M/M, Wingfic, fallen angel AU, remarkably little theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: Since he Fell, ex-angel Yuuri Katsuki has been working toward only two goals:1. keep his head down; and2. try not to think about what might have happened to land him on EarthHe's mastered the first, and he's doing well with the second—so well—but somehow he still can't resist helping a stranger in trouble.But this stranger may be more trouble than he's worth. And, he's no stranger at all.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Earth Angel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729858
Comments: 27
Kudos: 119
Collections: Fandom For Australia





	Andante

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hufflehobbit_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hufflehobbit_writes/gifts).



> Was anyone expecting more of this AU??? I'm not sure.
> 
> Well, shortly after I posted Aria, I participated in the Fandom for Oz charity auction event. The winning bidder on my lot, Hufflehobbit, asked for _more of this, please_ , so that gave me a lot of motivation to sort out how to write more and where to take the story :D
> 
> This is part 1 of a series, a prequel to Aria (if you've already read that one). Aria will actually wind up being part 3 of the series, which will be five stories in total. Aria can still be read alone, but I'm fleshing out both the Before and the After.

Locking the door to Yuuri’s apartment requires four hands. He needs one hand to pull the door closed, one to wriggle the key into the lock at just the right angle, and then two more to turn the key, forcing the heavy, rusted old bolt to slide into the latch. 

Unfortunately, when Yuuri was created, he was issued only the standard number of hands: two. So he settles for leaving the door only half-locked, the bolt grazing the edge of where it’s meant to rest. Stepping back, he looks from side to side to see if anyone is watching his struggle. The hallway light is dim and yellowy, casting shadows on the thin blue carpet which are, from a distance, indistinguishable from the years of stains and wear spotting the floor. 

The hall is empty, and that allows Yuuri to relax slightly. His neighbors aren’t bad people, but they’re _people_ —desperate, curious, and messy—and he wouldn’t be surprised if the half-open door was too much for someone to resist. But Yuuri’s life is private for a reason, and he’d rather not have anyone else inside.

Also, he’d really rather not replace any of his belongings. He doesn’t have that many to begin with.

With the hallway clear of prying eyes, Yuuri pockets his key and turns to go. He clatters down the groaning concrete and metal stairs that lead to the building’s rear exit. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, avoiding the iron stair rail that he knows will stain his palms with rusty orange and black streaks.

Seven floors down, he reaches the back door and pushes it open with his shoulder. He pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt to cover his face as he steps out onto the sidewalk. 

It’s hot out tonight, too warm for the baggy hoodie, but Yuuri always feels more comfortable outside in an extra layer. The air smells like gasoline, street tar, and char—somewhere in the distance, something is burning. This time, that’s not Yuuri’s fault.

The front door slams closed behind him, and Yuuri hunches, shoulders to his ears. He keeps his eyes on the cracked sidewalk as he walks. He’s learned its lines and scars by heart in the months since he moved in. It’s three and a half blocks from his front door to the bar where he works, and Yuuri can get there without ever raising his eyes from the pavement. 

He steps over a flowering weed that’s broken through a gap in the concrete as the church bell across the street rings out with a flurry of dissonant notes, and Yuuri winces. He left the house too early today—usually he waits until after the six o’clock bells have finished their call. No one on the street would guess it, looking at him now, but Yuuri used to love that sound. It’s not his hearing that the bells damage now, but his heart. 

Once, not so long ago, Yuuri had a place among the Heavenly Chorus. His had been one of many voices raised in adulation and ecstacy, part of a shining and glorious whole.

That had been before he wound up here, before he found himself on Earth, broken and alone, unworthy even of a final message or fleeting indication as to _why_. Now, the bells are nothing but a reminder, taunting him with the one thing he wants, the one thing he’ll never have again.

Fallen angels never get to return to the fold. 

Yuuri’s usual route to the bar veers around the church. It’s the same distance either way, and he’d prefer to avoid painful reminders, especially when there’s the possibility his schedule will intersect with an evening service. But today, there’s a bright orange sign blocking his prefered path.

_Road Closed_

Raising his head, Yuuri considers whether to jump the yellow caution tape and walk on. A sink hole splits the sidewalk ahead and creeps into the road, gaping like a portal to what the humans might think of as Hell. The pavement at the edges forms jagged, crumbling black teeth, and the pit at the center is dark and unsteady. 

With a sigh, Yuuri turns to cross the street, following the marked detour route that will lead him past the church. Forced outside his usual habits, he can’t depend on the cracks in the sidewalk to mark his path, so he has to keep his head up and his attention on the city around him. 

Between high, pointed stone arches, sunset fires the reds in the stained glass windows of the old cathedral. The glass gleams like a blood ruby, painting high contrast with the white-robed figure of an angel bearing a sword that dominates the largest window. 

On the sidewalk below, Yuuri pauses, staring up at the blank-faced angel with his gleaming white wings and golden curls. He looks nothing like the angels Yuuri knew, but there’s a _feeling_ to him, and though the glass angel has no eyes, Yuuri gets the distinct, creeping sensation of being observed. 

High above, the pendulous bells finish their steady declaration of the hour, and the street returns to its ordinary sounds—cars, bicycle bells, shouting. 

Shouting? Yuuri knows he should mind his own business in this neighborhood, but he can’t stop himself from following the sound. There, on the steps of the church, a pair of teenage boys are hassling a man. The third guy is older, taller, but he’s trying to avoid the boys more than engaging. Both hands shoved in the pockets of his designer jeans, he paces the steps, trying to get away. The boys, in matching black hoodies and close-cropped undercuts, circle like a pair of hyenas with a wounded antelope in their midst. As they close in, the stranger, walking backwards, trips on the steps and stumbles, falling to his knees.

This happens sometimes. Someone from a nicer part of town takes a wrong turn, holds his head up too long, makes eye contact with the wrong kid. They’re not _bad_ kids, from what Yuuri’s seen. The strangers don’t leave with anything worse than scraped knees and lighter pockets, most days, and that’s none of Yuuri’s business. 

_Keep your head down. Don’t draw any attention to yourself._ That’s his mantra.

But something about this one makes him reconsider.

Maybe it’s the location, right there in front of the sanctuary’s carved double doors, or the feeling of the stained glass angel’s watchful face pointed down at him. Or maybe, he thinks later, it’s something about the stranger himself—the way he moves, or the glint of his silvery hair in the dimming light of the day. 

Whatever it is, Yuuri’s dormant angelic impulses to render aid kick in with a vengeance, and he’s yelling at the teenagers before he’s even thought of something to say. What comes out is a sort of jumbled, “Heyo!”

The boys glance over, but dismiss him just as quickly, and Yuuri finds himself reaching for the nearest loose item he can find—which happens to be an empty soda can someone tossed on the sidewalk instead of the garbage. 

“Hey! Leave him alone!” He hurls the can toward the boys as he dashes toward them. It hits a step and bounces down, doing nothing useful, but making a lot of racket. 

Throwing trash is a foolish move, but through some miracle of luck, it works this time. The kids, faced with the prospect of taking on two grown men instead of one, scatter. They bluster, throwing a few choice curses and threats back at Yuuri as they go, but by the time he reaches the bottom step, they’re already slinking off around the side of the building.

Yuuri shakes the curses off like raindrops. His fortunes are too bad already for anything new to stick. 

The man is still kneeling on the church steps, his face upturned toward the glass angel above, and Yuuri rests a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thanks to you.” Silver hair falls over one eye when the man turns, but the other is lagoon blue. Yuuri’s heart flutters in his chest like a caged dove. He knows that face, from the tip of the sloped nose to the angled, almost pointed chin. 

“Victor?” Yuuri gasps, and Victor’s lips curve in a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.

“Do I know you?”

Yuuri hesitates, uncertain of how to answer that. It would be more accurate to say that Yuuri knows _of_ Victor. He was always one of Their favorites in heaven, a shining paragon of grace and beauty that many of the lesser angels—Yuuri included—tried without success to emulate.

“No,” Yuuri admits, then regrets the word when Victor’s smile falters. “I’ve just… seen you around. Can you stand?”

Victor nods and rises, towering over Yuuri from the upper step. Over his shoulder, the stained glass angel watches Yuuri scramble to regain his bearings on a twisting world. There’s a tear in the knee of Victor’s jeans, the white threads where they’ve ripped stained red. It’s probably just a scrape, but—

Yuuri would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious what Victor is doing on Earth, and Yuuri doesn’t like to lie, not even to himself.

“Come with me,” he says, nodding toward the street. “I’ve got some band-aids at my place. If there’s something around here you’re looking for, I know my way around pretty well.”

Victor perks up at that, his whole aspect brightening so drastically that Yuuri has to blink to be sure he’s not seeing a halo. “Oh, that would be perfect, thank you. I’m—new to the area.”

Understatement. Most angels rarely visit Earth, if ever, and Yuuri doesn’t remember Victor ever going on missions.

Admittedly, there’s a lot Yuuri doesn’t remember.

“This way.” Yuuri walks slower than normal, to give Victor space to follow. As they walk, he pulls his battered cell phone from his back pocket and texts Emanuel to let him know he won’t make it in for his shift. That shouldn’t be a problem—Sunday nights are usually quiet anyway.

 _Sick?_ Emanuel texts back.

_No. Unexpected visitor._

_Of the sexy kind? ;)_

Flushing, Yuuri shuts off the phone and shoves it back into his pocket before Victor can see. Emanuel’s only fishing for gossip now—he can suffer in silence.

It’s almost full dark now, and the yellow porch light in front of Yuuri’s building is flickering, giving off an audible, stuttering buzz as it does so. The light is dying, like most of the furnishings in the old building, and Yuuri knows once it goes out there will be no one coming to replace it. The landlords don’t even live in the city anymore. He heard a rumor they fled to Mexico. 

He glances back at Victor only once, holding the front door open for him. Victor’s head is up, his blue eyes roaming every inch of the interior, from the peeling floral wallpaper to the scuffed hardwood floor of the entryway. Yuuri sticks his hands in his jean pockets as he leads Victor up the stairs, but he doesn’t miss the way Victor runs his own hand up the time-polished wooden banister as they climb.

“What is this place?”

“An apartment building.” Yuuri answers, pretending not to understand the question. He’d asked Minako the same thing the first time he saw the front entrance of the old brownstone, but she’d only shrugged. Whatever the building was in a former life, it’s not that anymore, and it never will be again.

Unlocking his front door is, sadly, much easier than locking it. The bolt slides back into its resting place with the finality of a construction worker dropping onto the couch after a full shift. Yuuri puts his shoulder to the wooden door and forces it, until it gives way with a loud _crack_. Another door creaks open down the hall—one of his unseen neighbors peeking out to check who’s home. Victor waves.

“Come on. Let’s get you patched up.” Yuuri keeps his head down as they go inside, not wanting to see Victor’s reaction to the apartment. As dingy and threadbare as the building is, Yuuri knows his unit is worse. 

Paying penance for one’s sins with suffering isn’t a real thing, but Yuuri figures it’s worth a shot.

His ratty furniture and mismatched dishes came from a variety of charity shops and back alleyways. His coffee table is a milk crate, and his bookcase consists of a couple old boards propped up on cinder blocks. It’s functional, and Yuuri’s never minded that before, but with Victor shining like a star at the center of it all, Yuuri is suddenly conscious of just how miserable it would look to a stranger. 

“Have a seat,” he says, but doesn’t bother indicating a chair. Where in this mess could he possibly ask _Victor_ to rest? “I’ll be right back with the first aid kit.”

It’s been a while since he’s had to use the kit, so he takes a while to root under the bathroom sink before digging it out. The plastic latches spring open when he rests it on his knees, and a few Iron Man bandaids flutter to the floor. There used to be a few little boys who lived next door and, much as Yuuri tried to keep his head down in here, he couldn’t resist patching them up a couple times when he caught them crying on the stairs. Their mom has moved away now—Yuuri never heard where—so the first aid kit has been gathering dust. 

When Yuuri returns from the bathroom with his supplies, he finds Victor seated, not on the futon, but on the floor, cross-legged.

He’s also naked.

That gives Yuuri more pause than it ought to. Angels are usually naked, after all—bare as Adam and Eve had been before the apple tree. Once, Yuuri wouldn’t have batted an eye to find a naked angel wandering his living room, but he’s been on Earth a while now. He’s adjusted to the whole clothing thing. 

Victor’s clothes are stacked in a neat pile on the milk crate coffee table, and he smiles when Yuuri settles on the floor in front of him. The pants Yuuri can understand—they’d have had to come off for him to reach Victor’s knee, but the shirt? _Why did he take his shirt off?_

Yuuri considers asking, but decides he’d rather not know the answer. “Let’s see those knees then,” he says, and Victor uncrosses his legs, bringing his knees up near his chest instead.

As Yuuri suspected, the injury isn’t much to worry over. There’s some scraping from the concrete steps but very little blood. “It seems your jeans got the worst of it. They might be ruined, but your legs will be fine.”

“That’s okay,” Victor chirps. “I didn’t pay for them.”

There’s about a dozen things Victor might mean by that, and Yuuri would rather not unpack them all, but the options range from theft (intentional or accidental) to the possibility that Victor manifested pants for his visit to Earth that _just happened_ to be Gucci.

Instead of commenting, Yuuri focuses on the scrapes. He quickly cleans the injury, then layers on antibacterial gel, then the bandaid. Of course, if Victor’s going right back to heaven, this will all be for nothing. Angels don’t get scraped knees. Maybe Yuuri should have asked him that first.

“Good as new,” he pronounces, sitting back on his heels to admire his work. It’s almost comical, seeing Victor’s shapely legs splayed out on his threadbare living room carpet, a bright red Iron Man bandaid proudly decorating each knee. 

Victor flexes his feet as if testing it out. “Thanks. And thank you again for the save.”

“It was nothing.” Standing, Yuuri dusts off his jeans, mostly as an excuse not to look Victor in the eye. An unsettling silence coils between them as Victor, too, rises from the floor. Something is crawling up the back of Yuuri’s neck again, like the unseeing eyes of the glass angel that had followed him outside the church.

Slowly, Yuuri looks up from the floor. Victor _is_ watching him, holding one finger to his lips. He looks like an art critic viewing a painting and preparing a scathing review.

“You know, you said we didn’t know each other,” he muses, “but something about you is so familiar to me. What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t.”

It’s foolish to hope Victor will leave it at that, and Yuuri knows it, but he doesn’t want to see the look of horror that will overtake Victor’s features if he _does_ know Yuuri’s name, if he recognizes that he’s been tended to by a Fallen.

That would be almost as bad as not being recognized at all.

Victor watches him, silent but expectant, and Yuuri cracks. The sooner it’s over with, the sooner Victor can leave him alone to pick up the pieces of himself.

“Yuuri. They call me Yuuri.”

He was wrong earlier when he thought Victor was glowing. _Now_ Victor is glowing. He lights up from his feet to his face, as if a bolt of lightning shot through him, restoring him to life. 

“Yuuri?” Reaching out, he seizes Yuuri’s hands in his, clasping them to his bare (warm, so warm) chest. “This is fate, then. You’re just who I’ve been looking for.”

Yuuri’s heart soars and, for a moment, time stops. He hadn’t dared to hope, but— What else could it be? Someone above must have realized they made a mistake. Yuuri’s been redeemed, and they’ve sent down Victor to guide him back to the fold.

But then Victor lets go of him just as quickly. Taking a step back, Victor flexes his shoulders, and slowly, his wings unfurl. 

It hurts. Yuuri’s chest is _aching_ , and it takes him a moment to realize he’s forgetting to breathe, but why would he need to anymore? 

Because Victor’s wings are no longer pristine, no longer glorious white. His feathers swirl through the air, and every one is a tattered, mottled silver, the same shade as the hair on his head. At the tips, where once they’d faded to rose and gold, the largest pinions are stained a deep, startling crimson. 

Victor isn’t here to take Yuuri back home. Victor, too, is Fallen.

“The thing is,” he says, shaking his head as Yuuri can only stare. “I don’t even remember how it happened.”


End file.
